Learning the rules of legal citation is a challenge for new and seasoned legal researchers alike. Good instruction and practice are required to master these rules. Think about the first sport you learned to play. Did you master all the rules the first time you played the game? Do most people even read a rule book when learning to play a new sport? Initially, it is a challenge for any player learning the game to follow all of the rules correctly. Generally, only coaches study the rule book. The rules of the game are very important so coaches and players know what is and is not permitted “on the field.”

Most rules are disseminated orally and learned through practice. Law professors who teach legal research or supervise legal writing are the coaches in the game of legal citation; they must disseminate the rules to their students. The professors have a duty to stimulate a student's mastery of legal citation rules to meet the proficiency required of legal writing in the profession. Law students who do not master the rules of legal citation are more likely to plagiarize.

Consultants are retained to assist libraries in identifying, designing, and implementing solutions to a wide variety of strategic, management, operational, and human resources issues. The goal of the library-consultant relationship is to improve the operations of the organization. Although often unrecognized as such, law librarians are natural consultants. Librarians are problem solvers, and as such develop and use many of the same skills as consultants in their everyday roles in the law library.

For those versatile librarians skilled in change management and interested in pursuing these challenging professional opportunities, this article discusses best practices for library consultants and provides advice on how to avoid pitfalls in the context of an international case study. Part I of the article provides an introduction to professional consulting. Part II discusses the author's case study, a six-month fellowship with the Legal Resources Centre of South Africa. Part III then concludes the article with an articulation of the skills and talents exhibited by successful consultants to enable interested readers to better understand if consulting is an opportunity matched to their professional interests and skills.

In September 2008, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) announced the United States’ intention to join Singapore, New Zealand, Brunei, and Chile in what was then called the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement, a preferential trade agreement. Since then, the agreement has grown in scope and ambition. The negotiations to create what is now known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) have expanded to include seven other nations. The USTR wants the TPP to be “an ambitious, next-generation, Asia-Pacific trade agreement that reflects U.S. economic priorities and values.” According to the USTR's webpage dedicated to the agreement, the administration is “working in close partnership with Congress and with a wide range of stakeholders, in seeking to conclude a strong agreement that addresses the issues that U.S. businesses and workers are facing in the 21st century.”

Information Literacy (IL) has been defined by the ACRL as the ability to identify, access, evaluate, and apply information in an ethical manner. However, IL skills are not an ossified set of behaviors, and IL skills cannot evolve in an intellectual vacuum, without the content that allows for such skills to emerge from practice. As such, IL should be contextualized within the structures and modes of thought of particular disciplines. In response, a burgeoning IL in law movement has arisen, applying the standards of identification, accessing, evaluation, application, and ethical analyses to legal information and the research methods and tools unique to the practice of law. This article traces the development of this movement in three distinct jurisdictions: the United States, the United Kingdom, and Turkey.

In 1995, Robert Ambrogi, former columnist for Legal Technology News, wrote about the Internet's potential to revolutionize the accessibility and delivery of legal information. Almost 25 years later, Ambrogi now describes his initial optimism as a “pipe dream.” Perhaps one of the greatest problems facing the legal industry today is the sheer inaccessibility of legal information. Not only does this inaccessibility prevent millions of Americans from obtaining reliable legal information, but it also prevents many attorneys from adequately providing legal services to their clients. Whether locked behind government paywalls or corporate cash registers, legal information is simply not efficiently and affordably attainable through traditional means.

“Data protection” law refers to the legal scheme governing the collection, holding, processing, disclosure, and transfer of individuals’ personal information online … and off. Data protection is a fast-changing and increasingly important supranational, international (including transnational), and national topic that touches on a numerous core political concerns, including the freedom of expression, public safety, and international trade. One recent study found that “data privacy laws are spreading globally, and their number and geographical diversity accelerating since 2000.”